How to Make Bacon-Laced Chocolate Cake
Serves: 16
Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 30 mins
Ingredients needed to make Bacon-Laced Chocolate Cake:
- 2 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 12 oz dark chocolate bars, chopped
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 ½ cups boiling water
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 5 bacon slices
- 2 cups whipping cream
- 2 vanilla beans, finely chopped
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 5 drops liquid smoke
Cooking instructions for Bacon-Laced Chocolate Cake:
- Warm up your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease two 8’’x2’’ round cake pans with butter and dust them lightly with flour.
- Pour boiling water into a bowl of cocoa powder and whisk them thoroughly into a smooth mixture; keep it aside until it cools.
- Stir the baking soda and powder as well as a dash of salt into the flour and sift the mixture into a large bowl.
- Whisk the butter using an electric mixer, along with the sugar, vanilla extract as well as its chopped beans until they blend thoroughly.
- Crack the eggs into it and beat them into the mixture after every addition until they blend properly to form a fluffy mixture.
- Fold in the dry mixture gradually in four batches until all of it is incorporated to form a smooth, uniform batter.
- Whisk in the cocoa mixture until well combined and pour it into the prepared cake pans.
- Bake the cakes for half an hour or until its centre just turns firm; avoid overbaking.
- Cool it for about 10 minutes and flip them onto wire rack; continue to cool them to room temperature.
- Meanwhile, fry the bacons in a hot skillet until they turn crispy golden brown and drain the out into a paper towel lined bowl; reserve a tbsp of bacon dripping.
- Chop them into fine bits and set aside.
- For the frosting, dump the chopped chocolate into a large bowl.
- Boil 1 ½ cups whipping cream and tip it into the bowl of chocolate.
- Whisk in the liquid smoke, followed by the bacon drippings into a smooth mixture.
- Pour in rest of the cream and continue to whisk until mixed thoroughly.
- Chill the frosting in the fridge for about half an hour, stirring it at times to make loosen it up a bit.
- Fold in the bacon bits into ½ cup of the frosting and spread it across the surface of one cake.
- Place the second cake on top and smother it with rest of the frosting along its sides and surface.
- Let it set in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.
- Slice and serve.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
